


Sleepless in Starling

by Wherethereissmoak



Series: Julie's Summer 2017 Hiatus Fics [12]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, F/M, Lian Yu, post 5x23 flashback
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-20
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-17 23:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11861439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wherethereissmoak/pseuds/Wherethereissmoak
Summary: What if Oliver missed the opportunity to signal the fishing boat at the end of S5 flashbacks because of his fight with Kovar? Marooned on Lian Yu once again, he gets rescued in the most surprising way.





	Sleepless in Starling

**Author's Note:**

> This is for the Olicity-Hiatus-Fic-A-Thon prompt "Sleepless." I hope you enjoy this! I wrote it really quickly with my kids running around being loud, so please turn a blind eye to any mistakes. :) Thanks!

Oliver slammed his fist on the sandy beach of Lian Yu in frustration. He had missed his goddamn boat.

After months of planning for this moment with Anatoly, putting on the wig and beard, arranging for a fishing boat to be in the area at just the right time – Kovar had showed up to foil his plans.

And now Oliver was not going home. And he was stranded on Lian Yu AGAIN. Purgatory was the correct moniker for this place.

If only Kovar had shown up a few minutes earlier, then Oliver could have defeated him in time. If only Oliver had been speedier in killing him. Then he would be on a boat on his way back to Starling City.

He sat on the beach for two sleepless days – staring at the ocean, lost in his “if only” thoughts. Then, he pulled himself back together and went about the business of surviving. He had gotten off this island before, and he would do it again.

As Oliver made his way back to the airplane hull that had been his home once before, he promised himself that he would remain strong so that when the day he was rescued finally arrived – he would be ready to fulfill his father’s mission and save Starling City.

It took six months before he heard the sound of voices calling from the beach. His hair, already growing quite long during his time in Russia, had grown into a shaggy main. And a full-fledge beard covered his face. The fake hair Anatoly had left him would no longer be needed.

Oliver crept through the jungle and peered at the group on the beach. Experience told him not to trust anyone that came to Lian Yu on first sight. He saw crews of Chinese fisherman, presumably hired men, unloading supplies from a boat. Standing near them surveying the area was a large man, Olive guessed he had military experience, based on the way he held himself.

But who really captivated Oliver’s attention was a short blonde woman who looked terribly out of place on the beach. Her hair was pulled out of her face with a ponytail, and she wore glasses on her face. She sat cross legged in the sand, balancing a tablet of some sort in one hand and a map in the other. In her mouth was a red pen, and she periodically would write something with it on the map.

“Last time I spotted him, he was about a half a mile north of here. But it’s hard to pinpoint that precisely with all these trees,” she said. “We better get started in that direction.”

Oliver froze. These people were definitely here looking for him, but were they friends or foes?

“Oh frak,” the blonde said as she stood up. “Sitting on the beach was not a great idea. Now I’m going to have sand in…crevices…I mean places that you don’t really want to know about. And here I am still talking about it. Which I will stop in 3…2…1…”

Oliver couldn’t help it, a smile formed on his lips. For some reason, he knew he could trust this woman. His feet ignored the years of cautionary instinct and moved forward of their own volition. Soon, he was standing on the beach, only a few feet away from the blonde.

Her large blue eyes widened and gasped when she spotted him. Her larger companion came to stand next her, clearly intent on providing protection of Oliver proved dangerous.

Oliver didn’t say anything, just staring at the two. After six months of not talking to anyone, he wasn’t sure how his voice would sound.

“Felicity…maybe you should go wait on the other side of the beach,” the other man said. He grabbed her arm and tried pulling her away.

Felicity, her name was Felicity. And she was going to go away. No, that couldn’t happen. The weight of the months of loneliness on Lian Yu came crashing down on him all at once. He reached out and gently grabbed the fingers of her other hand. And it was almost as if an invisible string inside of him traveled between them and connected him to her.

If he was getting off the island, he needed her to be by his side for some reason. Like she was his connection to reality. Proof that this wasn’t a dream or hallucination.

Felicity must have felt a connection to him too, because she pulled her hand out of the other man’s grip. “It’s okay, Digg, I will be fine,” she assured him. Digg’s jaw tightened, but finally he must have decided to trust Felicity because he backed off. He looked Oliver straight in the eyes with a warning. “I will be right over here if you need me.”

Oliver nodded to the man, not ready to speak to him, but respecting the fact that he was protective of the girl in front of him. Felicity turned back to him, and moved her hand around so they could be connected by more than just the tips of their fingers.

They both stared at their connected hands for a moment, until she lifted her head and smiled at him.

“Oliver Queen? I’m Felicity Smoak, and I’m here to rescue you.”

***

_Six months earlier_

Felicity hated May. While most people enjoyed it because it marked the unofficial start of summer, with schools letting out and the weather warming up, she despised it. Only terrible things ever happened to Felicity in May.

In May, she had come home from school and found her father packing a bag and leaving her forever.

In May, her boyfriend Cooper had been arrested for hacking into the database to wipe away student loans.

The following May, he killed himself in prison.

Last year during May, her grandmother had passed away.

So on May 1, when her beloved Mini Cooper had popped a tire, Felicity settled herself into a feeling of dread for the entire month.

Things actually had been going great in her life in the past few years, death in the family aside. She was working for Queen Consolidated in the IT department, and the powers that be were starting to notice her work. She had a great apartment, and was starting to make friends in Starling City.

But it was May, so she was on edge. Waiting for the other shoe to drop can give a girl anxiety. Felicity was having a difficult time sleeping as she waited for the month to pass, and she called her mother every day to make sure she was okay. It was a little crazy, but she was completely normal the rest of the year so Donna Smoak wasn’t too concerned.

Felicity filled her sleepless nights by doing what she couldn’t do because of her work load – travel the world. From the comfort of her own home that is.

Although she had avoided hacking since Cooper died, she allowed herself the exception of hacking into the world’s satellites so she could view images from around the world. Night after night she looked at shots from Europe, Australia, Asia, etc.

Tonight, she was looking at the South China Sea. There were a surprising amount of small islands in the area, and she enjoyed trying to spot animals or villages of people living on them. She was particularly fascinated by an island that was very jagged in appearance, with a temple, abandoned village and what looked like to be the wreckages of a ship AND an airplane.

She looked up the coordinates. Lian Yu. Purgatory. Apt name for the abandoned island. Not a sign of life. Until one day, there was. She spotted a blip on the beach of the island. And the next day, the same blip was by the plane wreckage. A few days later it appeared somewhere else.

She couldn’t make out details, but from the shape and movements of her blip, she could tell it was a person. She watched the blip for a month just to be 100 percent sure. Felicity tried to call the Chinese government about the obvious castaway, but they had just laughed at the American woman raving about a blip.

Even though May turned into June then July, Felicity still spent way too many sleepless nights watching her blip. Something compelled her to watch him (or her, she didn’t really know) and make sure he was safe. She knew that if she did not take action, the person would be stuck on Lian Yu forever.

Felicity forced herself to catch up on her sleep so that she could come up with a plan. She still checked in on her blip a couple of times a day, sometimes talking to her computer, making promises to her blip that she would help rescue him.

The first thing Felicity did was access maritime and FAA records – looking for ships, airplanes, anything really that could explain a person being marooned on an island in the South China Sea. She didn’t find anything in the past few months, but she did find something from five years ago.

The Queen’s Gambit – the private yacht of Robert Queen, had sunk into the ocean and taken the billionaire and his son Oliver with it.  Felicity hacked into the satellite again and looked for Lian Yu images from five years ago, and sure enough, a single blip arrived on the island a few days after the last known contact with the Queen’s Gambit.

She knew in her heart that it was her blip. Felicity didn’t know if it was Robert, Oliver, Sara Lance or a member of their crew, but she knew that the Queen family deserved to know what she saw. But she also didn’t want to get their hopes up in case she was wrong. Memories of the reception she had from the Chinese government plagued her with self-doubt.

It took Felicity a month before she mustered up the courage to approach Walter Steele, an executive at Queen Consolidated who also happened to be the new husband of the family’s matriarch – Moira Queen. He seemed the most approachable of the group, but Felicity was nervous about how he might take the news that his wife’s husband may still be alive.

It turned out her fears were unjustified. Walter knew of her accomplishments in the IT department and trusted the information she brought to him. He brought her home to the Queen Mansion and Felicity share the information with the whole family. They were filled with excitement, and Felicity had a hard time managing their expectations. Thea and Moira Queen would not listen when she explained that her blip may not be a member of their family.

They had to know.

Despite the Queen’s wealth, the Chinese government still refused to send a boat out to investigate, but they did give permission for them to go on their own. It took a few months, but Moira was able to organize and expedition. She didn’t want to leave her daughter in Starling alone or risk Thea to the perils of the ocean like the rest of her family, so Moira asked Felicity to go on their behalf. They had sort of adopted the babbling blonde as an honorary member of the family anyway.

Felicity could not stop worrying about her blip and wanted to see this through, so she had agreed to the trip immediately. Moira hired ex-military man John Diggle to go with her for protection.

When they arrived on the island, it took her a few minutes to get her bearings. Felicity was just about to lead them into the island’s forest toward the plane wreckage when Oliver Queen appeared before them on the beach. She knew it was Oliver, despite his haggard appearance. His youth alone was a giveaway as to his identity, but she had stared at his picture while preparing for the trip and she would recognize those blue eyes anywhere.

The silence and near-feral look in the man’s eyes made Diggle nervous, but Felicity was not afraid of him at all. When he reached out and touched her fingers, a sense of peace filled her. _I found you, my blip, I did it. I’m going to bring you home._

She pulled his hand in for a tighter grip and Felicity felt the surge of something between them that she couldn’t name. No matter what, she knew that it would be a long time before either of them let go.

He spoke very few words as they waited while the crew loaded up the supplies they had unloaded less than an hour ago. When he did speak, it was basic yes and no answers to questions in a very hoarse voice. All the while, he never let go of Felicity. Once they were at sea, and in range, Felicity picked up the satellite phone and made a call.

“Moira? It’s Felicity. I have someone here you’re going to want to talk to.” Tears flowed down Felicity’s face as she held the phone out to Oliver.

“Mom?” Oliver said in a voice barely above a whisper. “It’s me Oliver.” Felicity continued to hold his hand as he wept on the phone with his mother.

They continued holding hands when they got back to mainland, and when they boarded the plane for Starling City.

Halfway through the journey home, John Diggle saw the two of them sound asleep, their heads leaning in toward each other, their fingers still intertwined. He figured this was the longest sleep either of them had in a while.

He also knew that it would be a long time before the small blonde gave up on the man she had worked so hard to find. And it would be even longer before Oliver Queen let his first contact and comfort in the world, Felicity Smoak, go either.  

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! Drop a comment and let me know what you think. This is a one-shot for now, but I may add to it one day if another prompt fits into it or I get inspired.   
> You can also follow me on Tumblr as wherethereissmoak and Twitter as smoakinfan.


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